VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Oct. 11, 2011) - Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reports that there were 1,783 housing starts in September 2011 in the Vancouver Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), exceeding the 1,644 starts recorded in the same month last year. Similar to August, multi-family construction accounted for the largest share of housing starts.

"Apartment starts were concentrated in the cities of Vancouver and Richmond, while Surrey led the way in less dense housing types including single detached and town house starts," noted Robyn Adamache, CMHC's Senior Market Analyst. "The City of Vancouver had the second highest number of single family home starts in the region, most of which were replacement housing."

The Abbotsford CMA recorded 29 housing starts in September, down from the 43 starts recorded in the same month last year. So far this year, home building has been stable, with 362 housing starts compared with 351 in the same period last year.

Nationally, the seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of total housing starts increased in September to 205,900 units, from 191,900 units in August. In British Columbia, September's seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban housing starts moved higher to 27,400 units from 23,100 units in the previous month.

As Canada's national housing agency, CMHC draws on more than 65 years of experience to help Canadians access a variety of quality, environmentally sustainable and affordable homes. CMHC also provides reliable, impartial and up-to-date housing market reports, analysis and knowledge to support and assist consumers and the housing industry in making informed decisions.

Preliminary housing starts numbers are summarized in the attached tables.

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1 Seasonally-adjusted annual rates are monthly housing starts figures adjusted to remove normal seasonal variation and multiplied by 12 to reflect annual levels. This adjustment facilitates the comparison of the current pace of activity to annual forecasts as well as to historic annual levels.